Saving Allison
by VirchowsTriadDuet
Summary: When a demon possessed a graduate student and began dropping bodies, it wasn't long before Castiel caught wind. Would saving the vessel be the right choice? How could he even begin to help her recover? He'd need some help... - This is a short I've written based on a description of how Allison (from the stories Internal Medicine and Family Practice) came to meet Cas and the boys.


**Author's Note: Vivi here! As many of you probably know, I've written a story titled Internal Medicine. It's all about Allison and her life with the Winchester clan. I haven't really written on exactly how she came to be with them; I hadn't written a scene about it in IM at least. After completing Internal Medicine, I decided that it would be a cool scene to write. So I wrote it out; this is it! If you haven't read IM, don't fret! This could be a nice introduction. I highly recommend IM, though I'm biased (I wrote it after all). If you want to read it, click my username and find it on my page. It's complete and already has almost 11,000 views. I'm in the process of writing the continuation of IM, titled Family Practice. If you like this little tidbit, read IM and then FP. And don't forget to review all three! I appreciate the feedback; believe it or not, your comments influence the plotline... Now, without further ado, here's Saving Allison.**

* * *

 _Angel._

I flinched as the thing controlling my body practically hissed the word in its mind. It was then that I heard the sound of wings, big ones, and felt the gust of wind swirl around my body. I shivered; the December air was cooler than usual today. Little whirlwinds of dust and debris rose from the floor and moved to blanket the already dusty farm equipment that lay packed away on the old wooden boards. Bright shafts of light illuminated slivers of the tiny dust storms, revealing the beautiful flow of the particles in the air. The barn was dimly lit by these shafts; had I not spent a lot of time in here with my father when I was a child, I may have gotten lost in the darkness of it.

"Demon, I don't want to kill your vessel." A gruff voice said from behind me. Finally, the thing- demon, I guess – turned my body around. Demon? Those weren't supposed to be real. Those were scary stories you told your friends in grade school during slumber parties. Those were myths used to scare bad people straight. Those were- but angels weren't real either. But how had this man gotten into the barn? The demon locked it when we came in. And I heard wings, but there were no birds…

"I don't want you to either. She's a keeper, this one. The little sunflower is my pride and joy now." The demon hugged my body and smiled spitefully at the angel.

Angels are good, right? Demons are bad and angels are good. Maybe this so called angel will save me. Maybe he can bring my family back. Somehow, looking at the clean cut man in the trench coat, I doubted he could help me. I was so far buried already. The blood of each of my family members – my sister, my husband, everyone- was still fresh and dripped lazily from my fingertips every so often.

Perhaps he'd have mercy on me and just kill me.

"She isn't yours." The angel said as he began walking in our direction.

The demon took a confident stance, but began backing away from him nonetheless. It was moving towards the stairs. I hoped it wouldn't fall down them. I knew it would hurt me but not this wretched demon. It had already proven that time and again.

"I've taken her. Most would say that she is, in fact, mine." The thing said, making my voice much higher and more shrill than I normally would. It must be female if it was trying to sound like that. Were demons gendered? I had no idea.

"I will return you to Hell one way or another. Even if the human must die. Let her go." The angel said.

"If I let her go she'll be sent to Hell by her own people, feathers. I've killed plenty and left lots of evidence for the authorities. Just a little back up plan, in case something like this ever happens. No loose ends." The demon curled my lips into a smile that felt appalling on my face.

The statement seemed to anger the angel. His face grew harder and I saw something slip from the sleeve of his trench coat. As he passed through a beam of afternoon light, the thing shone brightly. It was silver and looked menacing. And sharp.

The demon pulled my eyes open wide just before turning to run down the stairs. These stairs were original to the structure; at least a hundred years old. They creaked and protested under my weight. The demon jumped down the last four and sent painful shots of electricity up my legs as it landed hard at the bottom. I heard the angel take pursuit, skipping the last few steps as the demon ran hard down the length of the barn, looking for a way out.

"I've salted the exits, demon." The angel yelled from a few yards behind me.

The demon hissed audibly and ducked into an old animal stall. It pulled out the dagger it had used to kill my parents and held the wicked piece of metal ready.

The angel appeared in the gateway to the stall and the demon launched itself at him, rearing its arm back to send the dagger into his heart. I tried not to look, but I had no control over what I saw or heard; the demon controlled everything but my mind.

Somehow, the angel dodged the attacked and managed to slice deep into my left hip with that blade of his. I would have cried out and collapsed had I been able. The demon didn't hesitate a moment before fleeing the stall and running back towards the stairs, blood pouring from my wound.

"Stop hurting the human, angel. Aren't you supposed to be nice to them?" The demon shouted as it took the stairs two at a time.

"I am trying to save her." I heard him reply from the bottom of the stairs as the demon rushed to hide behind an old tractor. He was up the stairs almost before I thought was possible. The demon pressed my body hard against the old wheel, a big three foot monstrosity, old and dry rotted from years of disuse. My breathing stopped. I panicked; the demon had done this before, to punish me for shouting at it in my head. However, unlike the last time, it didn't have time to starve my muscles of oxygen.

The angel found us and nearly plunged the silver blade into my chest. He missed as the demon flinched away, landing the shaft in my arm instead. It pinned me to the tire, which started squealing as air began to leak out. The demon tried to shove the angel away and rip itself free, but all it did was flail in his direction as he reared back and landed a fist directly in the center of my face. I felt my nose snap.

The demon didn't seem to care that I was reeling in the back of my head from the pain, unable to think straight. It grabbed his arm and jerked to the right, throwing the angel to the floor.

The blade was then pulled from my arm and thrown hard against the wall above the hay loft, where it stuck in the old planks. My fingers curled around the demon's blade and it stood, grinning over the fallen angel.

"Saving these humans will get you killed, tree-topper. Are they really worth it?" My voice sounded so wrong being so high pitched. I mean, sure, I was female. I liked being feminine. But that tone of voice was just irritating to my ears. It drove me crazy having to listen to it day after day; the demon never slept and constantly talked to me or itself.

"Yes." The angel stood quite suddenly, taking the demon by surprise. He was holding a piece of rusted metal that I recognized as part of an old pitchfork. It sunk into the soft skin of my side like a hot knife through butter. The point of it pierced my back, just below my ribs. I was stunned, unable to think once again.

"Then quit trying to kill her." The demon growled, taking a stab with its knife. The angel caught its hand around the knife and squeezed until the demon gasped and dropped the knife. The pain built on what I was already suffering until I heard a series of unnerving snaps and felt the spikes of bone pierce my skin. There was no way I would ever be able to use my right hand again. Not with every bone in it broken like that.

The angel released my hand and the demon fled once again before the angel touched the palm of his hand to my head. It went straight for the workshop and grabbed a sledge hammer off the wall with my left hand. "I won't leave her, angel. Not for anything. I need her." It turned to face the entry to the workshop, which was just a walled off area under one of the hay lofts.

The angel was nowhere in sight. Then, out of the darkness, I saw something small come hurdling straight for me. The demon turned its back and I felt something dull stick into the flesh between my ribs. The demon looked over my shoulder as I screamed in my head. It was a sickle, used to harvest hay in the old days. Most if it stuck out but a good two inches were now prying two of my ribs apart in the most painful way possible.

The demon was getting desperate, I could tell. I silently pleaded for the angel to kill me already so I could be done with this pain. This pain… physical, emotion. It was more than I could take.

Before I knew it, the demon was sprinting into the darkness, sledge hammer raised. The angel came out of nowhere and jabbed an unyielding elbow into my stomach, making the demon lose its grip on the hammer and double over in pain. He then planted a foot on my hip, the one he'd sliced open, and kicked me hard. My body slammed into the old tractor's grill and then fell to the floor. I saw the angel head for the stairs to the hay loft.

So did the demon. It stood, despite my muscles being hardly able to respond any longer, and started to run for the door. I heard it start thinking loudly about some kind of chant that summoned wind, but before it could finish its thought, a huge weight was bearing down my left leg, crushing it to the floor and dragging the rest of my body down with it. The demon whipped its head around. I saw my father's relatively new saw mill, upside down with a few of the support beams threatening to snap my leg in three places. No matter how hard the demon struggled against it, it couldn't get free. It was too weak.

A soft metallic sound drew its attention to the hay loft, where the angel had retrieved his blade. The demon pulled hard against the saw mill once again. "I'm gonna be honest with you, Allison. This is the first time I've dealt with an angel." The demon growled. "If you don't die, I'll be back."

My vision was filled with a misty blackness, like ink spilled in a bowl of water. I heard rapid footsteps approach, sirens in the distance, wind whipping around my ears but I felt nothing. My jaw was forced open wider than it should have gone, but I felt no pain. My body was numb.

Before long, I caught a glimpse of the angel through the smoke. He looked like he was trying to contain the smoke, but it shot through the floorboards before he could accomplish his task. I thought he swore, but things were starting to sound like they were underwater. Muffled and distant. The sirens even began to blur together. I saw the angel glance at the door to the barn with a worried look. My eyes were getting difficult to focus.

Something shook my shoulder. I looked up to see the angel grimace at me. Then my head flopped back to the floor and, well, that was it.

* * *

The angel Castiel looked down at the woman. Her soul was fading. She had rusted metal protruding from her back. Her hip and fingers were bleeding. Her leg was broken in two places. It was likely that she would die before the police captured her. She would die there, on the floor of the old barn, and not in some cold prison.

Her life had been well lived. She was an accomplished student, a good friend, a virtuous woman; the angel researched her after getting a tip from a hunter about her possible possession. Letting her perish would not be cruel, or a mistake. She would likely pass quickly, go to Heaven, and be reunited with her husband. Already, she was unconscious and free of pain. A few more seconds and she would be in paradise.

Yet Castiel was torn. It wasn't her fault that she'd been possessed. She shouldn't have to die. Life here on earth was mesmerizing; if the angel thought it so fulfilling, how much more must man enjoy it?

Castiel had been following her since Bobby saw the strange deaths of three young college students in the paper and traced it back to her. Unfortunately, he'd arrived too late to her family's homes, where he anticipated the next attacks. There was only blood, sulfur, and death at those places. No demon. Finding her in the barn had been a stroke of luck; he found her husband, murdered, in their apartment just across the driveway. The demon was close enough for him to see in that barn. All he wanted to do then was end the killing streak.

And because the demon had done such heinous acts, the human authorities would want to kill her, the human the demon had called Allison. Castiel really didn't want her to die. He had, after all, tried to save her, only resorting to an attempt at smiting when it seemed the demon had a decent chance at killing him.

He could heal her. But she would have to run from the authorities for the rest of her life. And being a graduate student, he doubted that she had the capabilities to do so. He also doubted that she'd have the will to run; she probably didn't know about the supernatural and would think that she'd killed her family in a psychotic fit. That would be no way to live. She may well turn herself in at that point, rendering his efforts useless.

It hurt Castiel to think that he should probably let her die. It would be easiest for her. No running, no dealing with the horrors she'd remember when she woke up. No nightmares. Then again, what if she wanted to live? What if she could bounce back and make a new life for herself? Everyone deserved a second chance, didn't they? That's what his friends said. He wasn't sure if it was true, certainly no demon deserved a second chance, but perhaps it held for humans.

Knowing her name made the decision all the more difficult. Castiel had a soft spot for humans. Watching Allison die was torture. She looked up at him before passing out and he wrapped one hand around the handle of the sickle he'd thrown into her back. It came out with a fair amount of force. She probably had a collapsed lung by now. Castiel looked at the rusted thing, now coated in the blood of an innocent. Would forcing her to live be a mistake?

The pitchfork tine was next. It slid easily from her torso, which was slightly bloated. The demon probably hadn't been eating or drinking enough food. The poor human was probably overloaded with alcohol at the moment. Hopefully that dulled some of the pain, if she could feel any.

Next, he removed the saw mill. She looked so broken. Bloody. So very near death. It would be so easy for him to just let her slip away…

There were footsteps just outside the barn door. It was made of thick wooden slats; a padlock secured it shut. Castiel knew he had about thirty seconds before the door was rammed open.

His eyes were fixed on the frail human before him. Her soul was barely a wisp now, just a soft glow that his eyes could only see if he squinted. A feeling that was relatively new to the angel, one that his friends explained to him was called guilt, coursed through him.

He couldn't watch her die or be killed. It was decided. Maybe it was a mistake, but he couldn't let her go like this.

The angel knelt next to the human and pressed two fingers to her temple. She gasped and opened her eyes for a moment before they fluttered closed again, filling with tears. Strange. He'd only removed any potentially infectious materials from her body before closing her up.

Quickly, her leg, fingers, and nose were mended. Then her lacerations. Finally, her lung was pulled back into place and secured. When he was done, he noticed that she was much less bloated than she had been. He gently flipped her over onto her back and shook her shoulders to wake her up.

"Allison." He called softly, quickly. The first slam of a battering ram sent a shower of dust down from the rafters. One of the boards splintered.

Slowly, her eyes slid open and focused on the angel. "Kill me, please, kill me now." She sobbed, gripping his coat tightly in her fists.

"I'm going to help you." He said as he picked her up carefully in his arms. She squirmed like an angry octopus, kicking, throwing weak punches, flailing angrily. Castiel rolled his eyes as he gripped her arm and pressed two fingers deep into her bicep. She was limp within seconds. Sleeping deeply, ready for transport. The door to the barn was rammed in.

* * *

Castiel touched down just outside a massive old building and set Allison up against the wall next to the door. He pulled out his phone and called the only people he knew could help him now.

"Cas?" The deep voice barked.

"Dean. Where are you?" Castiel asked, glancing up and down the road for any unwanted witnesses.

"Me and Sam just got back to the bunker. What's up?" He asked quickly.

"Let me in?" Castiel asked, a frown on his face. If they'd just returned from a hunt, they would be on edge and surly. This was going to be more difficult than he'd imagined.

"Yeah, man. Gimme a sec." Dean hung up and Cas put his own phone away. He looked down at Allison, still sleeping peacefully, still covered in blood. Hers and her family's.

Soon the door swung open and Dean stood just inside the threshold. "What's the word?" He asked. Definitely tense.

"I have a favor to ask." Cas said, trying his best impression of Sam's puppy dog face.

"What d'ya need?" Dean asked, instantly guarded.

Cas finally let his eyes slip down to the sleeping female beside the door. He looked back to Dean and started to wring his hands.

"Wha-" Dean stepped outside and caught a glimpse of the unmoving figure. "What happened? I thought you were tracking a demon."

"I was. Can we take her inside? It's cold out here and her fingers are starting to turn blue." Cas said simply.

Dean looked at her for a second before motioning towards the door. "Yeah, yeah. Bring her in. We'll set her up in Sam's bedroom. Mine's a war zone right now."

Castiel gathered up his charge and carried her into the warmth of the Men of Letters bunker. Two flights of stairs later, he paused in the war room to greet Sam, who was hunched over a book in the library. "Sam."

The younger Winchester glanced up and quickly returned his focus to the book in front of him. "Hey, Cas-" He looked up again and stood. "What happened? Who is that?"

"I'll explain after we get her body temperature up again. She's been hypothermic for days. Without that demon in her, her body is starting to shut down again." Cas said as Dean led the way into the Sam's bedroom.

"Again?" Sam asked, trailing behind them. He frowned as they turned into his room, but he knew it would be in better repair than Dean's, so he let it go.

"In an attempt to remove the demon, I inadvertently brought her within a few seconds of death." Cas said, laying her overtop of the comforter. "I healed her, but I couldn't leave her there."

"So she's demon free now, right?" Dean asked with a suspicious tone in his voice.

"Yes. I'm fairly sure I sent it back to Hell, but it was quick. I- I'm not sure it arrived." Cas frowned. "Do you have a heating blanket?"

"Yeah. I'll grab one." Sam said quickly, leaving the room.

"Cas, what's going on here? You never bring girls home." Dean said quietly, not wanting Sam to hear.

Cas grimaced and gestured to the motionless figure on the bed, who was still sticky with blood. "Dean, I couldn't leave her at the scene. The police were coming. They would have killed her in a prison for all the demon's murders had I left her there. I try to save people, Dean. I really do. I couldn't let her die and I couldn't let them take her… I didn't know what else to do."

"I think I know where you're going with this. No, Cas. The answer is no. We do not take in strays here. Hell, Sam and I just moved in a couple weeks ago. This isn't exactly great timing." Dean said, glancing at the woman, who had started to shiver.

Sam returned at that moment with an old electrically heated blanket over his arm. "So what's the story, Cas?" He asked as he spread the fabric over her body and plugged the thing in. He turned it all the way up before joining the huddle at the foot of the bed.

"He wants to leave her here." Dean said.

"Sure. How long? Couple days?" Sam asked, glancing between Cas and Dean.

"I don't know." Cas said softly, glancing to Allison, who had stopped shivering. "She has nowhere else to go. No remaining allies. If she gets arrested, she'll be killed for the murders the demon carried out. And unfortunately, she'll probably have some serious mental health problems when she wakes up." Cas turned to face the brothers he'd gotten to know over the past few months. "I'm asking for a favor. Help me care for her until she can function on her own. Give her a safe place to live until then. Please."

"You want us to watch her? Like babysitting?" Sam asked, his face contorted in confusion.

"No, Cas. We don't take in strays." Dean said firmly, crossing his arms.

Allison stirred just enough to catch the attention of all three hunters. In her sleep, she squinted her eyes and her face betrayed the pain she was enduring in the dream world. She actually cried out shortly after. Cas went to stand beside her and pressed two fingers to her temple. Her face relaxed and her breathing evened out immediately. "My thought was that you know some of what she's going through, Dean." Cas said as he returned to the huddle. "And Sam, you seem to know how to help people heal. Psychologically, at least."

"Cas, come on. Don't ask us to do this." Dean said, looking uncomfortable. "How are we supposed to watch her when we go on jobs? We can't take her and we won't just give up hunting to be with her all the time."

"I'll stay here with her when you're gone. And when you are here, I'll continue hunting demons." Cas said. Even to him, the favor was beginning to seem a little much to ask of them. However, he'd resolved to help the poor woman, and that's what he'd do.

"We don't even know her name, Cas." Sam said.

"So you want us to be like divorced parents? You get the kid one week and we get her the next?" Dean asked.

"Yes, that seems like an appropriate comparison." Cas said flatly. "Her name is Allison."

"Cas, seriously, I don't know about this." Dean said. "What if she tries to kill us in our sleep, huh? The bunker is supposed to be our safe place. How can it be safe with a stranger living in the next room?"

"Dean, it's not permanent." Sam said. "It's just until she can function on her own, right, Cas? That could only be a few days." He shrugged. "Maybe a week or two. Nothing crazy. And she probably weighs like one twenty soaking wet, Dean. You scared of a little girl?" A taunting grin spread across Sam's face.

"Sam has a point." Cas said, looking to see Dean's reaction.

Dean rolled his eyes and glared at Sam before addressing Cas. "Fine. She can stay for a few weeks. But you'll owe me one, Cas. And it'll be a big one."

Cas smiled. "Thank you, Dean, Sam. How long do you plan to stay here at the moment?"

"Until we find our next case." Dean said, glancing down at Allison. He flinched, causing the others to look at her as well. "Is she supposed to be in the fetal position?"

* * *

That night was filled with the sounds of strangled screams and desperate gasps followed by heart wrenching sobs and hysterical fits. Cas stayed in the spare room with Allison, trying to calm her. By two in the morning, Dean had had enough. His room was next to the spare and he heard every shallow consolation the angel tried to give. With a final huff of resolve, he hauled himself out of bed, put pajama pants on, and knocked on the door to the spare.

"Cas, open up." He said softly, not wanting to wake Sam if he was asleep. The door clicked open and Cas, looking more than a little out of his element, stood in front of Dean. "Go sit in the library or something. I'll take a shift." Cas nodded and seemed very grateful for a break. Once he was gone, Dean shut the door and looked to the cot they'd set up in the middle of the back wall.

The woman called Allison was cinched tightly into the fetal position, hugging her knees and crying endlessly against them. Cas had pulled a chair up next to the bed sometime in the night. "Allison?" Dean called out.

The pile of blankets that she huddled under stopped moving as her sobs ceased.

"My name is Dean. I live here. Cas is a friend of mine." Slowly, Dean eased down into the chair next to the cot. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise."

The ball she'd pulled herself into somehow got tighter and she began sobbing softly once again.

Dean lowered his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look, I know this isn't gonna mean much to you, but this pain… It just lets you know you're still alive. There's still something worth fighting for." The sobbing didn't let up. He hadn't expected it to. "I'm gonna go get some stuff. I'll be right back." He stood and went to gather a short list of things he'd compiled in his head. Tissues, towels, bottles of water, saltine crackers. Everything Sam usually needed when he got sick.

She was still crying quietly when he returned, though she hadn't moved an inch. Sam looked up at him from the chair, slightly surprised. He must have come in after Dean left.

"Couldn't sleep?" Dean asked his brother, seeing the dark circles beginning to form under his eyes. They hadn't had a full night's rest in nearly two weeks. The last hunt ended literally six hours before Cas showed up.

"Uh- no. You?" Sam asked softly.

"Cas needed a break. Kinda out of his zone of expertise." Dean said before approaching the cot. "I brought you some water. Try not to get dehydrated, okay?" He said. Allison pulled the blanket over her head. "I got tissues too. I'll leave them next to your pillow if you need them."

That somehow got her to scale back the sobs. They sat with her for the next few hours. She drifted to sleep a few times, only to jerk awake and sit up, looking around frantically, confused. Sam tried to defuse the panic in her eyes every time she woke, but it always ended in tears and the fetal position. Allison didn't speak a word; her only communication was terrified glances, sobs, and streams of tears. Several times, both men had to remind themselves that this was only temporary.

Little did they know that this was the first of many days filled with tears and sobs. This was the first of many days caring for the woman they'd come to know as a friend. Little did they know that in under a year, she would be family. She would hold family in her heart and become the mortar in their unstable lives. Saving Allison would prove to be the best maybe-mistake Cas ever made.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this short! Let me know if you did; just leave a quick review. Even guests can review, by the way. Don't forget to check out my page for links to Internal Medicine and Family Practice. I'll also be posting additional shorts now and then. New FP chapters come out every Saturday until they're gone! See you next time! - Vivi**


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